Movie Making and animation

Todays objective is to look at different applications available to students for making movies.  The first application we looked at was found at http://www.dfilm.com/  Care should be given to this website as some material would not be appropriate for primary students.  The following link is the movie that I have quickly created this morning:
<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="never" allowNetworking="internal" height="285" width="381" align="middle"

Another site is http://www.zimmertwins.com/ You have to join the site.  Once in, it is incrediably easy to create a movie, by simply clicking on icons provided.  Students can add text to the text bubbles where needed.  Great for introducing students to film production as the icons clicked on create a basic story board for the students to follow.  I have a link for the film that I have created this morning, but unsure whether it will work:
http://www.zimmertwins.com/node/1051237

Above we see an example of Rebus Writing, which may be a great alternative for students who dislike writing and reading.  This example came from http://www.storygames.com/

Another fun site is http://www.buildyourwildself.com/ This site, students can build a virtual them, but by adding in different body parts from animals.  At the end, the program gives the student their "new species name", and some facts about the animal/s from which the parts have come from.  Here is mine:

Another site is http://www.reasonablyclever.com/ Here students can create a "lego" man.  May be incorporated into real life lego building, students might have to try and create a real lego man from one that has been digitally created.  Here is one that I have created in todays session:

There are also plenty of games available on line (eg http://www.pbskids.org/) that are educational but illustrate the use of animations.

M&M's Colour Chart - A yummy introduction into graphing!!!

This is an excellent introduction (and a yummy one) to explore the use of graphs for presenting data.  Note:  Extremely important to check the school's policy regarding chocolate and chocolate products.  If chocolate or such products are banned, then Skittles may be to be used, or coloured stars etc.

As an engaging activity, students could be asked to make predictions as to how many of each of the colours will be in the M&M's packet (and any other predictions that might be suggested).  This could start off as a group exercise, where a packet is handed to each group, and each member within that group is responsible for counting out one of the colours.

After the colours have been counted, the information can be entered into MS Excel under two columns (Colour and Number/Count).  Instructed the students on how to highlight the required cells.  Then the students can insert the data into graph for, as a visual representation of the data.  Students could explore the different types of graphs and choose which format they feel most appropriate.

 

 After this students can be shown how to change series colour, add axis headings, changing title heading and add series data.  Students may then want to explore their creativity and import a background image, like the one that is shown below.